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Tomi on Twitter is @tomiahonen

Follow Tomi on Twitter as @tomiahonenFollow Tomi's Twitterfloods on all matters mobile, tech and media. Tomi has over 8,000 followers and was rated by Forbes as the most influential writer on mobile related topics

Book Tomi T Ahonen to Speak at Your Event

Contact Tomi T Ahonen for Speaking and Consulting Events

Please write email to tomi (at) tomiahonen (dot) com and indicate "Speaking Event" or "Consulting Work" or "Expert Witness" or whatever type of work you would like to offer. Tomi works regularly on all continents

Tomi on Video including his TED Talk

Tomi on Video including his TED TalkSee Tomi on video from several recent keynote presentations and interviews, including his TED Talk in Hong Kong about Augmented Reality as the 8th Mass Media

May 03, 2012

The presentation looks at how will money be made in the future of telecoms. I discuss such critical topics to telecoms as 'Peak SMS' how long can text messaging revenues and profits sustain mobile, smartphone migration rate, how long will it take and can all phones become smarthpones, and my latest view to the Grand Convergence we will see this decade. I talk about the astonishing developments in mobile money, the 9 Unique Abilities of Mobile, and what happens when money and advertising merge - ie Advocurrency. The presentation runs 50 minutes and the video is very well produced. Oh, and even if you don't want to see the full video, check out the video at about 47:30 what happened on stage haha, this is a memorable event for me for that reason (was first time for me haha)

March 18, 2012

Peter Day hears from Alan Moore author of No Straight Lines: making sense of our non-linear world and asks him 'what next' for the industrialised world.

In his book he argues that the industrialised world is facing the combined problems of social, organisational and economic complexity. In this edition of Global Business he tells Peter Day how No Straight Lines interprets the disruptive trends shaping our world and how companies can address the challenges and move onwards and upwards. Have a listen (No Straight Lines interview)

No Straight Lines available as open access participatory book (click here)

March 14, 2012

In Chapter 5 - which is about mobile communications and its empowering capability - we look at Worldreader.org a company that is in fact taking up this very challenge.

Rather than a laptop for every child - a noble cause but faced with overwhelming infrastructure problems - Worldreader have given Kindles to school children in Africa that can now harness the wealth of knowledge that exists easily for many of us at a cost which means; access is no longer a barrier to learning. The significance is explained by Brookings

Being able to read and write is the most basic foundation of knowledge accumulation and further skill development. Without literacy, there can be no quality education. Presently, 1 in 5 adults is illiterate, two-thirds of whom are women. At the current pace, over 700 million adults worldwide will still not be able to read in 2015. [1] In global education discussions, literacy rates are most often reported for adolescents and adults, an ex post facto measure of the failure of primary school systems to impart basic skills in the most formative schooling years. It is clear that much needs to be done to provide these adolescents and adults with access to successful literacy programs. But we must also ensure that children with access to schooling are not growing up to be illiterate.

They cite the enormous potential of the Worldreader initiative

the important difference between (the worldreader) e-reader program and similar projects focused on putting computers in classrooms is that e-readers usually operate on the mobile phone system, which has exploded in developing regions over the last few years. In Kenya, more than 80 percent of the population has mobile phone network coverage and more than half of the population has purchased a mobile phone subscription. The GSM compatibility of e-readers allows for downloading of new reading materials wherever there is mobile phone coverage and sufficient funds available to purchase new texts. E-readers also have relatively low levels of energy consumption (a one-hour charge can last more than a week). In addition to gaining the support of community leaders and teachers from the beginning, the pilot began with intense in-service training for teachers in how to use e-readers to complement their existing curricula.

While Worldreader.org has not solved all of the challenges posed by technology initiatives in education, it has taken some important steps toward addressing the barriers to project success.

When we look at archetype organisations for NSL, Worldreader very much meets the criteria of the 6principles of No Straight Lines.

They embraced ambiguity - to seek a pattern that might suggest a way forward

They evolved a literacy to enable them to adapt to a challenging problem

They built an open ecology of scale

Enabled by the kindle's the children were able to participate in collective learning

Craftsmanship is evident in the ability to craft an entirely new organisational model.

They designed for Transformation

If you would like to read more about literacy, or the 6 principles of No Straight Lines you can via our open access participatory book please be our guest and click here. Or pop over to our store.

If you would like to know more about our Transformation Labs then click here.

February 27, 2012

The big statistics and numbers blog! Its that time of year, the start of a new year, and we have to update and memorize new numbers. For me this annual blog is a kind of honor, a bit like the US president who gives his 'State of the Union' speech to Congress. (The state of our industry is strong!) And the blog article will get very wide coverage throughout the year as the definitive collection of the big numbers in one place.

So lets do a bit of the headline stuff. Two years ago we learned that the richest person on the planet was no longer from the PC industry, Mr Bill Gates of Microsoft in the USA, but that title had been taken over by Mr Carlos Slim, the mobile telecoms tycoon from Mexico whose America Movil network stretches across 240 million people and most of Latin America. Cool. This industry produced the richest person on the planet.

Three years ago I reported that mobile had passed the Trillion dollar level in annual revenues and in so doing, had become in fact the fastest new industry to reach that lofty level - television and radio never became that big, the PC industry and the internet even combined, are not that big today. Print media - all books, magazines and newspapers printed annually - never reached that level. Mobile is not just one of a handful Trillion-dollar size giant global industries like the automobile business or food or construction or banking or military spending; but mobile has set the record for the fastest growth from zero to one Trillion dollars in annual revenues. We have literally witnessed the setting of a world record in growth of any industry. Even as the world went through two economic downturns in the past ten years, mobile grew strongly through both of them.

Then last year we had Apple fighting for the lead for the most valuable corporation by market capitalization (which it has since seized and is now increasing that lead). But few remember that less than two decades ago, Apple was on the brink of bankruptcy. They brought back Steve Jobs to rescue the company, and he steered Apple to the mobile future. So much so, that the company whose official name was Apple Computer, and had launched highly successful new series of Macintosh PCs and the iPod music player and iTunes store - changed its name to only 'Apple' when Jobs announced the iPhone. Since then Apple has called itself a 'mobile' company. Today the iPhone delivers more than half of Apple's revenues and most of Apple's profits. Like I say in my seminars and workshops - Mobile is the Magical Money-Making Machine. This is very literally and factually the strongest industry on the planet, with the most robust growth, the strongest profits and thus it is the best place to be for any company or person to build a success.

But its no longer just the PC industry which is excited about mobile. Look at statements from various industry giants outside of technology. Visa said in 2011 that the future of payments is mobile. And they were not talking about contactless payment plastic cards. They were talking about mobile phones. Google's Chairman Eric Schmidt wrote on Harvard Business Review last year, that mobile money is one of Google's top priorities. What? The internet giant known for advertising intends to take on Citibank and American Express and Paypal? In mobile? Yes. Google has been mad about mobile for seven years now, and their internal mantra is 'Mobile First' - meaning that for any Google initiative today, they will deploy the mobile variant first. This from the company that set the record for fastest growth from zero to entering the Fortune 500. And they say the future of the internet and advertising (and money) is.. mobile.

Facebook and Twitter say the future of social networking is mobile. BBC says the future of broadcast is mobile. Tesco's the big UK retailer feels mobile is vital for the future of retail. Gaming is rushing to mobile (Angry Birds, anyone?) and music is already on mobile. Even print media are rushing to embrace mobile from MMS based highlight clips to Augmented Reality enhancements to print editions.

Its not just business. Government is increasingly turning to mobile. Politics is embracing mobile. Healthcare is providing assistance via mobile. Education is using mobile to help in learning. This is by far the most dynamic and most exciting industry to be in. And with that, lets start to dig into the numbers today. All data in this blog is current as of December 31, 2011 and yes, you may freely quote all the data on this blog (please list the source as TomiAhonen Almanac 2012).

5.9 BILLION SUBSCRIBERS

When I left Nokia ten years ago to start my own consultancy, the global mobile phone subscriber count was at 700 million - there were more fixed landline accounts (1 Billion) globally than mobile accounts. The leading countries like Finland, Hong Kong, Austria, Italy and Israel had passed 80% mobile phone penetration rate per capita, and one country, Taiwan was past 90%. Yes it was an exciting time, but even the mobile industry itself did not foresee this incredible growth. The industry expected the world to have 2 Billion mobile phone subscriptions by the end of the decade - a huge growth of tripling in size in one decade. The reality was quite different. By the end of 2010 we had 5.2 Billion mobile phone subscriptions on the planet (prepaid and post-paid, combined). All sensible analysts predicted that the growth rate would slow and nobody expected half of Africa to be connected. How wrong we all were.

Today more than 77 countries have passed 100% mobile phone penetrations per capita including the mobile laggard country, USA which finally reached that level last year. Meanwhile the leading countries continue to push past 150% and past 175% and even yes, past 200% mobile phone penetration rate - as the UAE did becoming the first country with literally two mobile phone accounts for every living person of any age.

The planet has a population of 7 Billion people alive. And now there are 5.9 Billion active mobile phone subscriptions. That is a global penetration rate of 84.3%. To put it another way, if we allocated all mobile phones to every living person by age, starting with the over 100 year olds, and then proceeded down every person alive getting one mobile phone subscription, today the ages we would cover comes down to everybody older than the age of .. eight! Yes, if the 5.9 Billion mobile phone subscriptions were distributed evenly, every single person on the planet age 9 or older, would have one.

Makes you think? In one decade this industry grew more than 8 fold. This mobile industry has sustained a compound annual growth rate of 24% year-on-year for a whole decade! (when measured in its paying customers, obviously, the revenue growth is not quite that dramatic while also good). Even the past year, we grew new customers from 5.2 Billion to 5.9 Billion, adding 700 million new customers in the past year. The whole mobile industry had only 700 million customers a decade ago! The growth rate of adding 700 million new customers to 5.2 Billion is still an enormous 13.5% in just one year.

Compared to the landline cousin, ten years ago fixed landline was the big brother of telecoms, at 50% bigger. Today, if a telephone rings anywhere on the planet the odds are 5 to 1, that the phone ringing is a mobile phone. Yes, the picture is so lopsided, that for 5.9 Billion mobile accounts, there are only 1.1 Billion fixed landline telephones worldwide.

When will we reach 100% per capita mobile phone accounts. Some have started to push early numbers now for 2012. I saw a Cisco projection claiming we'll hit that milestone this year. I think that is premature, but definitely by Spring of 2013, the world will pass that incredible milestone, that when measured per-capita, there will literally be more mobile phone subscriptions than people alive on the planet. I do not think we will see that number this year, but we will definitely see it by Spring of 2013.

4 BILLION UNIQUE USERS, 4.8 BILLION HANDSETS IN USE TODAY

A mobile phone subscription is not a unique user. Some still are astounded by the stats, but yes, increasingly we, perfectly normal people, are walking around with two mobile phones in our pockets. And in many markets the competitive situation is such, that consumers switch between carriers/mobile operators by swapping the SIM card, so you might have two or three or four mobile phone accounts and use one phone. Several manufacturers have introduced Dual SIM phones (mobile phone handsets with slots for two separate SIM cards, allowing the user to switch between two networks without swapping out the cards). The first Triple SIM phones have already appeared.

Just to be clear. Why two phones? Imagine having a phone from work - a Blackberry. But your employer has tight controls on what you can and cannot do on that phone. So you get yourself an iPhone as your private phone. You are now part of the population with two mobile phones (and two mobile phone accounts). If you have a data dongle for your laptop or netbook or iPad - that would be a third cellular mobile account..

I was the first telecoms expert to expose the bizarre concept of multiple phone ownership (because it happened first in Finland and it was first observed by my team when I was employed by the Finnish telecoms operator/carrier group Elisa/Radiolinja/Helsinki Telephone at the time in the late 1990s) and have been reporting on the phenomena ever since. So my consultancy has also provided the most accurate counts of how many of the planet's total mobile users are 'unique' users and how many of those accounts are second and third accounts. This is the far more relevant number to consider on a planetary migration to digital connectedness. How many 'unique' users are there on mobile, after we remove the second phones and the multiple subscriptions.

Its an easy number to memorize for this year - 4 Billion. That is the unique mobile phone user number. That is 57% of the total population of the planet, which very literally - not by statistical gimmicks - very literally do have an active mobile phone subscription (prepaid or post-paid) and at least one mobile phone handset that they use.

And you might ask what of the total number of mobile phone handsets in use. That number will be more than the unique users (some have 2 phones) and it will be less than the 5.9 Billion total subscriber number (because some only have SIM cards on rival networks sharing one phone on them). My consultancy now reports the 2011 number for total active mobile phone handsets in use and with a live paid subscription to be 4.8 Billion. Wow. 4.8 Billion pocketable digital communication devices that are in use on Planet Earth every day. Wow. That is huge.

How big is 4.8 Billion? There are 970 million cars registered and in use worldwide. There are 1.1 Billion landline phones. There are 1.3 Billion personal computers of any kind including desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs like the Apple iPad - all combined. There are 2.2 Billion internet users (including office use, home use, shared use at internet cafes and schools etc, and mobile internet users). There are 1.8 Billion television sets and 4 Billion radios in use globally. But 4.8 Billion actual mobile phone handsets in use! Wow, that is an enormous number. Or let me put it this way. If you take all television sets in use in the world, and add all personal computers of any kind including laptops and tablets, and add fixed landlines - their combined total - 4.2 Billion is still less than the 4.8 Billion mobile phone handsets currently in our pockets globally. Massive! Obviously much more on mobile subscribers, also regionally, and by age, and across the Digital Divide in the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012.

THE AVERAGE USER?

So with 4 Billion unique users and 5.9 Billion total mobile subscriptions, clearly there are 1.9 Billion 'second or third' (or fourth etc) accounts. How many of us therefore actually have more than one account? The number is now 1.5 Billion people or 37.5% of the total number of unique users, actually walk around with two SIM cards or more in their pocket. 400 million of those have three or more active mobile subscriptions (mostly pre-paid accounts).

And yes, 3.2 Billion people on the planet who have a mobile phone account, are satisfied (or can only afford) with one handset, but 800 million people already walk around with two phones in their pockets (some ultra-geeks like me have 3 phones, haha, but that number is too small to register in the big picture). So yes, one in five of us, literally 20% of anyone who has a mobile phone, walks around with two connected phones in his or her pockets (and/or purse in the case of the ladies..)

Its no longer 'weird' to have two phones. One fifth of all who have a mobile phone today, actually use two phones daily. Not just two accounts, two actual phones. This is a remarkably different reality from the one imagined by industry thought-leaders a decade ago, when they were planning mobile phone handsets for the future. The mantra was the perfect device, that would do 'everything' but now if we have two devices, we will of course optimize. One is great for texting - has a great QWERTY keyboard like a Blackberry, while the other is great for surfing, has a big touch screen like the iPhone. Or if we love our cameras, we have one camera-optimized phone in one of our pockets like the Nokia N8 or the HTC Titan 2, etc.

SMARTPHONES

And what of the normal user? How many of those mobile phone handsets are smartphones then? Not that many actually. Globally the installed base is still 81% non-smartphones, what I call 'dumbphones'. Some are very advanced 'featurephones' that have cameras, big color screens, full internet browsers, and often improved input methods from QWERTY keyboards to touch-screens. These would typically cost in the 50 to 100 US dollar ranges without any handset subsidy ie no contract. Still others are of the ultra-cheap type that do only voice, SMS and have perhaps some rudimentary functions and facilities - a flashlight/torch, an FM radio and a clock. These can cost under 25 US dollars without subsidy. Many of the phones in use are older, often second hand, so there is a large pool of hundreds of millions of older Nokia models still in circulation especially in the less-affluent countries in the Emerging World. Also our younger kids often get hand-me-down phones which may be a two-year old Samsung or SonyEricsson or indeed an iPhone 3GS.

So 19% of the installed base of handsets globally are smartphones. That is an increasing ratio, last year it was 17%. The new sales of mobile phone handsets this year passed 1.6 Billion units, and 30% of them - 486 million - were smartphones. By the fourth Quarter, ie Christmas sales - a third of all mobile phones sold were smartphones. So we are well on the way on that transition which is now unstoppable, that eventually all handsets in the world will be what we now define as 'smartphones' (but the actual form factors and specifications will of course evolve).

Most who read this blog will have an interest in the Industrialized World, and with us in the most affluent parts of the planet, the migration to smartphones is well along already. In Europe the installed base of smartphones corresponds to a 41% penetration of smartphones per capita. In many individual countries like the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland, the tipping point has been passed where there is a smartphone now for half the population (bear in mind, with these 'per capita' calculations, we still have the dual phone phenomenon - so in reality some wealthy employed white-collar workers will often have two smartphones). North America passed the point last year where there is a smartphone for one third of the total population per-capita. In advanced countries of Asia-Pacific like here in Hong Kong or Australia and Singapore etc, the penetration rate of smartphones per capita is almost half, at 48%.

This tracks perfectly the sales patterns too. Last year the US market reached the point where half of new phone sales were smartphones. Europe was there a year earlier and advanced countries of Asia-Pacific were reaching the half-point of new handset sales by 2009.

But others of my readers are interested in the Emerging World (or the full global view). So lets not forget that. I can report that in the Middle East the smartphone penetration level per-capita is past one third, at 37%, slightly ahead of North America. Some of the leading countries like Qatar, UAE and Israel are well ahead of the mainstream Europeans and the Asia-Pacific region. Latin America has passed the point of a smartphone for one out of five people, the per-capita penetration rate is 22%. In the less-affluent countries of Asia, which includes most of the big population countries like China, India, Indonesia etc, the smartphone penetration rate is 12% per capita. And in Africa its still in the early days, with smartphone penetration rate of 3% per capita.

How many smartphones will be sold this year? I am projecting about 750 million, which would be about 44% of all new phones sold. The migration is continuing and the global smartphone installed base will pass the 1 billion level by the second quarter of 2012. We will end the year with something between 1.1 Billion and 1.2 Billion smartphones in use worldwide, which starts to approach the installed base of all personal computers of any kind including desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs like the iPad.

While everyone obsesses about the iPhone and Android (and Windows haha) the global installed base of smartphones by operating system is still dominated by Symbian. Not for long, because of Nokia's suicidally stupid move to end Symbian last year, while it towered over all rivals - and was growing new sales strongly - but yes, even now, more than one year after the infamous Burning Platforms memo that destroyed Symbian's (and Nokia's) future, this is the picture of the installed base:

Last year 2011 was the first time that more smartphones were sold than all types of personal computers added together including desktops, laptops, netbooks and tablet PCs like the iPad. I have also been calculating the global 'computer manufacturer' market shares annually, when smartphone shipments are included in the overall numbers. The chart for last year for the biggest PC makers with smartphones included is here. And for those who need all the nitty-gritty about mobile phone handsets, feature sets, market shares, regional penetration rates, and market sizes for the major countries, the obvious total data source is the Tomi Ahonen Phone Book 2010.

WHAT DO WE DO ON MOBILE?

So what do we do on our mobile phones? The obvious answer used to be 'we make voice calls' and some smartphone users might say 'download apps' or perhaps that we 'surf on the web'. That is all fine and good, but the truth of the matter is that last year marked a major milestone in the 'mobile' industry, where the primary use of the mobile handset is no longer voice calls - and no, its not apps nor is it web surfing either. The primary use worldwide - and the one with most users today - is SMS text messaging. Yes, last year, only 18 years after SMS text messaging was first offered as a commercial service for consumers, our favorite messaging method has passed voice calls in total users. SMS text messaging is used by 85% of mobile phone users - 5.0 Billion people - vs voice calls that are only used by 83% of mobile phone users (4.9 Billion people). Apps and mobile web come far lower on our list of preferences. And its good to see that even the USA is finally embracing SMS wholeheartedly. Pew reported in 2011 that the active user level of SMS text messaging had reached 88% of US cellphone owners. That compares to 90% in Pakistan, 91% in Brazil, 91% in China, 96% in Indonesia. Most of Europe has passed the 90% user level years ago for SMS text messaging.

So its time to end calling it a mobile 'phone' (or cellular 'phone') - because voice calls are no longer the most used service on our mobile handset devices. I am trying to learn to call the device just a 'mobile'. But lets talk about SMS text messaging a bit. First how big is 5.0 billion? Compared to total email users - SMS is three times bigger. Compared to all landline telephones? SMS is 4 times bigger. Compared to facebook? Over 5 times bigger. Active users? SMS text messaging grew users last year from 4.2 billion to 5.0 billion ie 16% growth in total paying users. In just one year! The traffic in SMS text messages grew even more - by 18% and while the carriers/operators kept giving huge bundles of 'free' SMS messages in various pricing packages, the revenues of SMS globally? Still grew 5% last year reaching 126 Billion dollars worldwide! The SMS industry earns a fresh new million dollars every four minutes of every day, day and night, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. SMS alone is bigger than Hollywood movies and the global music industry and videogaming - all added together. Or to put it another way, SMS text messaging alone is bigger than the revenues of the global radio broadcast industry. Not bad for an 18 year old haha.

DON'T FORGET MMS

And then we have the other monster mobile messaging success, MMS picture messaging. The versatile MMS is exceptionally well suited for various media and advertising uses, but also has a growing user base in consumers who send pictures. The usage of MMS has now passed 43% of the total mobile subscriber base and at 2.5 Billion active users, MMS now has more users than the total of people who access the internet by any method (at work, at home, at shared computers at libraries, schools and internet cafes; and via mobile internet). MMS became the second most used data service on the planet last year. And what a service. MMS user base grew by 21%, and MMS revenues grew by 15% reaching 39 Billion dollars last year! Much of the premium revenues are generated by various media and advertising uses as media brands learn that MMS answers most media issues with SMS - MMS allows longer texts than 160 characters of SMS; and MMS allows adding sounds, pictures and video clips. MMS is also an increasingly popular transport vehicle for coupons, offers, tickets, boarding passes, receipts etc

WHAT OF MOBILE DATA?

You may have heard some say that soon there will be more users of the internet on moble phones than on the PC. Those 'experts' are severely misguided. We passed that milestone two years ago as reported widely from IBM to Nokia. Now we have the latest count of browser based service use on mobile handsets for 2011. Today the number of mobile internet users (including WAP) is 30% of all mobile subscribers - and thus 1.8 Billion total people worldwide - browse internet content on their mobile devices at least part of the time (in the Industrialized World most of us will also have access to a traditional PC). Still out of all 2.2 Billion internet users worldwide today, less than 400 million use a PC exclusively. Over 1 Billion use both a mobile device and a PC to access the internet - and in 2011, 800 million use a mobile handset exclusively as the internet access device. In six of the world's ten largest internet user countries the mobile use is bigger than traditional PC based use (China, Japan, UK, India, Russia and South Korea).

And what of news? An astonishing milestone also has now passed. The global user base of news and alert services on mobile is 1.9 Billion. Why is that a relevant number? Yes, its four times more than the total circulation of all daily newspapers worldwide - so even accounting for three readers per newspaper, mobile news still now has more (paying) users than total readership (paid and free-loading) of all newspapers printed. But that is not the astonishing number. Now mobile news has passed the total number of television sets in use globally! No wonder the Associated Press Managing Editors declared in September of 2011, that mobile was the future of news.

How about advertising then? Sure. That too is exploding globally. JP Morgan told us a year ago that the total value of all mobile advertisingin 2010 globally was 11.5 Billion dollars. I now have the update to that number, for 2011 that was 14.4 Billion dollars (including advertising on various new ad platforms such as the branded smartphone apps etc). How many people receive ads on their phones? 3.4 Billion people worldwide, or 58% of all mobile phone owners. Most of that is now banner advertising, with SMS text messaging based ads second, MMS third and the rest such as search, location-based ads, adver-gaming, branded smartphone apps, etc making up the rest. For those in the marketing and advertising (and perhaps media) industries who would like to understand mobile advertising more, please see Tomi Ahonen Pearls Vol 1: Mobile Advertising.

WHAT DO WE DO ON OUR PHONES?

Here is an abbreviated chart is exceprted from the brand new TomiAhonen Almanac 2012 of the types of activities we do on our mobile phones today, as a percentage of all mobile phone subscribers:

Note for example the active user base of cameraphone based digital cameras at 4.2 Billion (or 71% of all mobile phone users). It is four times more than the installed base of all non-phone based cameras on the planet, including digital and film based stand-alone cameras and videocameras, combined. Much more such user info in the new TomiAhonen Almanac 2012 if you need more data.

The mobile has become indispensible for us. Its more than a communication device, it now has our clock and alarm, it has our calendar and reminders. We use the camera not just to take 'traditional pictures' but also as a memory tool taking pictures of what we should remember to buy at the store and where we parked the car. We store vital information at the phone book and we store valued SMS text messages with information such as addresses and parts numbers etc, to the romantic message that so touched us that we want to keep it forever. Nokia reported a year ago that the average person looks as a phone 150 times per day. For every waking hour, that means you and I look at our phone once every 6.5 minutes. Those heavily addicted teenagers do it even more - although they are so proficient at their phones, they often don't need to look at the phone to send their messages.

SO WHERE IS THE MONEY?

Ever since my second book (M-Profits the first business book for the mobile industry) my obsession with this industry has of course always been the money. Where are the revenues, how are the profits generated. And even while many still are hyping the smartphone apps space, that is not where the money is. The mobile industry is a juggernaut. The mobile industry is the youngest Trillion-dollar sized giant industry on the planet, and reached that level only three years ago. Last year the world economy grew between 3% and 4% in size. In the same period, the mobile industry grew revenues by 10%. The mobile industry is now worth 1.3 Trillion dollars (1,300 Billion dollars).

Most of those revenues are earned by the carriers/operators whose total revenues last year passed 1.02 Trillion dollars. 651 Billion of that was in voice call revenues and 186 Billion was in various mobile messaging service revenues. 179 Billion dollars was in premium data services. Beyond the operator/carrier revenues, there was also equipment sales consisting of handsets, networks and various accessories.

So yes, the very first mobile telecoms service as we know it, on a cellular network service, was launched commercially (in Japan, by NTT) in 1979. It took this industry only 29 years to breach the 1 Trillion dollar level. So we have been witness to the establishment of a world record in the fastest growth of any new industry. No wonder the world's richest person is now Carlos Slim of America Movil and high tech companies from Apple to Google say their future is in mobile.

And what are the companies that lead this industry? I also provide the listing of the biggest global corporations - when their non-mobile business is removed. So after we remove the Macintosh PCs from Apple and remove the plasma-screen TVs from Samsung and remove the fixed landline business from Vodafone, who are the biggest companies on their 'pure mobile' business. The latest top 10 list of the biggest companies purely on their mobile revenues looks like this:

That is the Top 10. I published the Top 25 on this blog earlier if you want to see that, and to find out more about my quirky names for some of those imaginary companies, and how they would rank in the Fortune 500 etc.

ABOUT THOSE APPS

I have been monitoring the despair of the app developers in attempting to monetize the smartphone app space. Apple is about to celebrate its 25 Billionth iPhone app download but before you cheer that big milestone, bear in mind, Apple has only paid out a total of 4 Billion dollars so far. So Apple, the most successful app store, in its four years of existence, has only generated 5.7 Billion dollars of total revenues cumulatively (of which Apple kindly keeps 30%). Those 25 Billion downloaded apps have shared 4 Billion dollars of developer revenues in total or about 20 cents per downloaded app. Its not a way to get rich, if the median app gets under 1,000 downloads (meaning, half of all apps out there get even less than that). Obviously most apps on the App Store are free apps, so yes, the numbers are somewhat better for the paid apps, but this is no goldmine. I have been cautioning audiences globally to beware of the app store opportunity, it is a treacherous one, and its not anywhere near the easiest way to make money in mobile. And while we are on those numbers, the total smartphone app revenues in 2011 were now 12 billion yes, but those were not all 'app store' type of consumer apps.

Like in years past, the majority of the smartphone app revenues were still generated by enterprise/business apps, such as those for the Blackberry enterprise users, sold often with licenses counted in the thousands or more. Consumer apps associated with 'app stores' only were worth 5 Billion dollars last year, 2011, and enterprise apps were worth 7 Billion dollars, giving us the grand total of 12 Billion dollars last year for all types of smartphone apps. 12 Billion may seem big perhaps. But before you get excited about that number - all apps revenues formed only 4% of the total mobile data revenues opportunity last year. Yes, you are far better off going where the big opportunities lie such as in gaming, news, social networking, music, television related services (like TV voting) etc. That is why Coca Cola has a rule of 70:20:10 about their mobile strategy - they put 70% of their mobile dollars to SMS and MMS mobile messaging; they invest only 20% to the mobile internet; and only 10% in mobile apps. Or the simple way to say it, is like US food giant Kraft, whose mobile strategy is 'no mobile left behind.' They too start with SMS and MMS, then do mobile web (and WAP) and only after no mobile has been left behind, do they bother with the apps side of smartphones. Similar thinking is with Finnair the airline that invented the mobile check-in and a similar mobile philosophy is for example used by the German railway system.

Incidentially where is the strongest growth in profits and revenues, if not in apps? Its in mobile social networking (think Facebook and Farmville but on mobile). And conveniently, if you so desire, I have a book for you on that, with 50 case studies of excellence in user-generated content, citizen journalism, virtual worlds, dating, flirting, picture sharing, multiplayer gaming, social networking etc. The ebook is called called Tomi Ahonen Pearls Vol 2: Mobile Social Networking.

WHO IS THE LEADER? JAPAN OF COURSE

This is a difficult complex industry - far more complex than rocket science actually - and very difficult to fully comprehend. But the industry was launched in Japan, and for most of the commercially viable innovations of this young industry, Japan and Finland have taken turns in the leadership, with South Korea, Sweden and Norway often also playing major parts. But recently some innovation has come from the USA, especially relating to those smartphone apps (even though, some of the most successful - like Angry Birds by Rovio comes from Finland - or the most futuristic and innovative - like Layar the Augmented Reality Browser comes from the Netherlands). So it becomes difficult to know where to go to see the future in mobile. Where is the leadership? I have done the math for you. I use a formula which combines the four most used measures of mobile industry leadership (mobile subscription penetration rate, the generation(s) of the networks in use, the adoption of mobile data services, and the level of how advanced the handset installed base is, ie smartphone penetration rate). The world's leading mobile country once again was Japan for 2011, here is the Top 10 list as I calculated it:

If you were looking for the USA, it didn't make the top 10 but is ranked 17th (up from 19th in 2010). You can see the Top 20 list here, and the Top 30 list with far more information is of course in the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012.

IT ONLY GETS BETTER

But its not ending there. The world's largest lock-maker, Assa-Abloy is deploying locks for hotels and homes that can be operated by mobile phone. Google, Nokia, Vodafone and many more mobile giants are in a race to deploy mobile money solutions around NFC Near Field Communciations, a new technology coming to our phones - 19% of Japanese already make such payments.. daily. You may have heard of the border-crossing incident on the US-Canadian border where a stranded visitor had lost his passport, but had a scan of it on his iPad and was allowed to pass over the border. I have been saying for some time now, that in the future our passports will be on our phones. But today, I advise all friends and collagues to make scans of our passports and driver's licenses and save them on our phones, just in case you are in a similar situation. While such a scanned image is not necessarily legally valid, it is far better than nothing - and if you have a good cameraphone (5 megapixel or better) all you need is good sunlight, take a picture of your passport and driver's licence and save them onto your phone(s).

Meanwhile the innovation in mobile is relentless. Turkey became the second country after Spain, to accept SMS based signatures as legally binding in contracts last year. Estonia became the second country after Norway to accept SMS based tax returns! And after Sweden launched it, there is now a race for which country is the first to stop the manufacturing of coins and banknotes altogether - replaced by mobile money. Kenya has passed the point where 30% of its GDP is now going through mobile phone money accounts. The 'usual suspects' are in the race of course including Finland, Norway and Estonia; including Japan and South Korea; including the Philippines and South Africa; as well as some less obvious countries like the Netherlands and Somaliland. But the first country to give a target date for when they expect to eliminate cash is Turkey - and they said in November of 2011, that their target year is 2025. That is only 13 years from now!

If we go back 13 years to 1998, that was the year of the movie Titanic and when Bill Clinton had his Monica Lewinski scandal. Google was launched that year. Tony Blair was Britain's Prime Minister. And now only a similar amount of time into the future, we may see the first country to end the manufacturing of cash (and this being a race, it may actually happen a little bit earlier in some other ambitious country). Wow. After several thousand years, we will be the generation to see the end of cash as a monetary instrument, in our lifetimes. Killed by mobile. And yes, if you needed to read a quick book about mobile money and payments, check out my Pearls Vol 3: Mobile Money.

My dear friend and fellow mobile statistician and forecaster, the author Chetan Sharma says the world will change more in the next 10 years, than it has in the previous 100 years. The driving force in that change is mobile, as mobile is a robust, economically sound industry, not clinging desperately to some advertising-based revenues alone. This is the best economic opportunity of our lifetimes. And not just in strict monetery terms, obviously also if your passion is in education, please substitute 'learning' for profits; or if you are in m-health, consider healthcare benefits rather than revenues. And so forth. But this is the richest and most rewarding opportunity and the epicenter of creativity. No wonder Google's Chairman Eric Scmidt says 'Put your best people on mobile'.

UPDATE 29 FEB - I have announced the release of the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012. With that publication I added some exclusive data from the Almanac with four charts (out of 96) published in total and some other excerpted sample data from the Almanac. You may find the data useful especially if you are interested in the mobile internet, gaming, music, handset installed base, or the 'Digital Divide'. See more here TomiAhonen Almanac 2012 Released.

WHERE NEXT?

This article is using data from the brand new edition of my annual statistical volume for this industry, published in ebook format, called the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012. You may freely quote any of the data in this article, please mention the TomiAhonen Almanac 2012 as your source. And if you are interested, the Almanac has over 90 tables and charts, is a 184 page ebook. conveniently formated for the small screens of smartphones so you can carry all the stats in your pocket with you and only costs 9.99 Euros for immediate download. Please see more including sample pages at this link TomiAhonen Almanac 2012.

If you need more information about the handset side of the industry, my Tomi Ahonen PhoneBook 2010 is still very current with all the data about cameraphone resolutions, screen sizes, smartphone operating system market shares etc. Similarly formated and priced 9.99 Euros, also at over 90 tables and charts in an 180 page ebook, the sister volume to the Almanac, focusing only on the handsets side of our industry is the Tomi Ahonen PhoneBook 2010.

February 13, 2012

An invitation to come and read No Straight Lines: making sense of our non-linear world as an open access participatory book.

It looks at how we can build better more sustainable societies, organisations and vibrant economies through innovative practice.

It argues we need to design and create for the needs of humanity not industrial systems. You can read the entire book (open access) by clicking on READ THE BROWSER BOOK link on the No Straight Lines webpage

There is an entire chapter devoted to mobile.

I explore mobile from the perspective of what it can do at an organisational and at a societal level.

From the Achuar tribe in the Amazon rainforest using mobile and GPS enable digital technologies to challenge the Peruvian government and the mining companies trying to exploit their habitat and way of life to children using iPhones at school for learning in new exploratory ways - I make the point that mobile plays an important role in the evolution of every aspect of our society.

So NSL looks at education from Africa and India to the western world, it looks at how bricks and mortor organisations can become platforms and become part of a global economy, we look at how people living on $2 a day could be doubling their daily income by working on their mobile phones – we look at the politcal consequences of rapidly shared knowledge and information, we look at data and the impact on how commerce per se will evolve enabled by mobile. And we celebrate organisations like Ushahidi that are showing us the way in how innovation really works. In Japan we look at ground breaking business models that are already nearly 10 years old and we wonder why the fashion industry is not fully up to speed, nor indeed the media industries either.

I also argue that if organisations are not able to really design with mobile they could be missing a significant opportunity.

Here is a sample of the introduction.

Gutenberg is a moblogger: economic, organisational and societal transformation through mobile communications

There is another aspect of our non-linear world which plays an important role in what comes next. We are inevitably moving towards a society where our mobile devices become the remote control for our daily lives. Any technology that allows us to better connect, communicate, share knowledge and information and get stuff done will be widely adopted.[1] Some of the stories already presented suggest the changes to people’s lives big and small that mobile communications will usher in.

We are but at the beginning of our journey of transformation which will take some time, generations even, to play out. Vint Cerf, one of the founders of the world wide web, has a view that much has already been achieved to create a better world: ‘It has provided access to information on a scale never before imaginable, lowered the barriers to creative expression, challenged old business models and enabled new ones.’ He continues: ‘It has succeeded because we designed it to be both flexible and open. These features have allowed it to accommodate innovation without massive changes to its infrastructure.’[1]

Gutenberg is a moblogger

When discussing or teaching disruption, I ask the question whether the church ever saw Gutenberg coming. The church was a powerful monopoly controlling all before it did so by ensuring that knowledge, the protein for innovation and creativity, was safely kept out of the hands of feudal man and woman. Power was knowledge, and knowledge could only ever be accessed by joining the church. Gutenberg, busy in his garret in Mainz, had no idea what he was unleashing upon the world, yet were Gutenberg to be alive today, he would be creating technology so that he could be taking pictures and shooting videos with his mobile; he would be blogging and vlogging via his mobile, paying for his car parking spaces via his mobile, getting his library books renewed via SMS, dating on Flirtomatic and getting his healthcare from the 3G Doctor. When technology becomes successful, it becomes ubiquitously invisible and so our mobile devices become our personalised remote controls for life.

The numbers of mobile devices in the world, currently some 5 billion, with 80% of the world’s population living within range of a mobile network, including the Masai and the Bedouin, is extraordinary. Never in the history of the human race have so many people been able to connect to each other – the scale is simply unprecedented. In developing economies, people are finding innovative ways to use mobile technology. Grameen's microfinance and village phone programmes in Bangladesh and elsewhere are known and respected around the world, but there are many less famous examples. During the Kenyan elections, Mobile Planet provided its subscribers with up-to-the-minute results by text message. And in his Presidential election campaign, Barack Obama did not miss the opportunity to mobilise his supporter network through mobile connectivity. Writing in the Observer, Cerf states: ‘As the cost of mobile technologies fall, the opportunities for such innovation will continue to grow. We're nearing the tipping point for mobile computing to deliver timely, geographically and socially relevant information.’ He goes on to comment on how researchers in Japan have proposed using data from vehicles' windscreen wipers and embedded GPS receivers to track the movement of weather systems through towns and cities with a precision never before possible. ‘It may seem academic’, he adds, ‘but understanding the way severe weather, such as a typhoon, moves through a city could save lives. Further exploration can shed light on demographic, intellectual and epidemiological phenomena, to name just a few areas.’

[1] Vint Cerf, ‘If you thought the internet was cool, wait until it goes space age’,Observer, Sunday, 17 August 2008.

[1] McGuire’s Law: the utility of any activity increases with its mobility. http://mcguireslaw.com/.

January 27, 2012

In No Straight Lines there is an entire chapter devoted to all things mobile. It is called Gutenberg is a moblogger: economic, organisational and societal transformation through mobile communications.

It maybe that a certain Mr Ahonen - has much of this covered on the CDB blog.

I explore mobile from the perspective of what it can do at an organisational and at a societal level.

From the Achuar tribe in the Amazon rainforest using mobile and GPS enable digital technologies to challenge the Peruvian government and the mining companies trying to exploit their habitat and way of life to children using iPhones at school for learning in new exploratory ways - I make the point that mobile plays an important role in the evolution of every aspect of our society.

So NSL looks at education from Africa and India to the western world, it looks at how bricks and mortor organisations can become platforms and become part of a global economy, we look at how people living on $2 a day could be doubling their daily income by working on their mobile phones – we look at the politcal consequences of rapidly shared knowledge and information, we look at data and the impact on how commerce per se will evolve enabled by mobile. And we celebrate organisations like Ushahidi that are showing us the way in how innovation really works. In Japan we look at ground breaking business models that are already nearly 10 years old and we wonder why the fashion industry is not fully up to speed, nor indeed the media industries either.

Why? Because they fail to see what is right in front of them - they are stuck in an ambiguous world.

I also argue that if organisations are not able to really design with mobile they could be missing a significant opportunity and this is NOT about apps.

It just might get you or your clients thinking differently about the future potential of our mobile society

January 24, 2012

A car company built around a global community as an organisation, enabled by combining flex manufacturing techniques, open source platforms, open legal frameworks and social communication technologies premised upon cooperation, fuelled by the desire to be a great company and green; that can build cars 5 times faster at 100 times less the capital costs. A crisis management platform and organisation born out of the Kenyan post-election crisis of 2008 that can record critical information of events unfolding on the ground via a blend of location-based data, eyewitness accounts and mobile telephony, from often hard to reach places which visualises those unfolding events so that others can act and direct action at internet speeds. And now utilised for free in many parts of the world. Or, the largest organic diary farm in Britain, that has evolved a methodology that allows it to remain autonomous, profitable and sustainable in a market that is acutely volatile, because large-scale agricultural farming is mostly run on an oil-based economy, plus diary farmers are at the calculating mercy of the marketing needs and whimsies of large chain supermarkets.

A new social / organisational / economic model

They are collectively representative of a new reality of living, working and organising. These organisations or companies have quested to find a means to serve humanity better, to search for meaning in the work that they and others do, and offer up new viable alternatives for the ways that, in the past, these things were done. They seek an outcome that is more distributive of wealth, ideas and resources. In fact, one might argue an outcome that is more humane and community centric. Rather than premised upon the extraction of wealth, and resources, whether they be physical, mineral or otherwise, these very different initiatives represent both moral courage and a collective purpose, if you will. And why is that important? Because it does not matter if you are an employer, a worker, VC fund, an NGO, an organisation, a local council or a government, you will miss out on the energies and capabilities of your people who will increasingly seek those new realities to discover a better way of living, working and being, when better and viable alternatives are on offer. And the fact is we now have the possibility to truly transform our world, to be more lightweight, sustainable and humane, through the tools, capabilities, language and processes at our fingertips. As Tony Judt argued: ‘Why do we experience such difficulty even imaging a different sort of society? Why is it beyond us to conceive a different set of arrangements to our common advantage?’

The opportunity and the design challenge

Which brings me on to the title and the challenge of this project. Be realistic, imagine the impossible is taken from a poster from the 1968 Paris riots. In making sense of its meaning for our time, I would argue that what we face at the tail end of our industrial society is a design problem. The reason is that we are witness to a systemic failure of many of the institutions that have brought us so much prosperity and it is this convergence of failures that requires us to understand the challenge from a whole systems approach.

Many of the institutions, organisations and systems that we still use were designed and built for a less complex world, the increase in the complexity of our world is placing an unsustainable load upon those institutions, organisations and systems. One could argue our industrial world has reached the edge of its adaptive range. Consequently, fault lines are running through our society which present a trilemma based around interlocking social, economic and organisational tensions and questions. The design challenge involved in resolving these questions comes because the non-linearity is causing a comprehensive restructuring of society at large, breaking old models of organisation, and the trilemma heralds the coming of the age of uncertainty. All three tensions are in flux, and cannot be addressed without considering the other two. So each and every part of this story reflects upon and relates to this trilemma: the relationship of the individual to companies and other organisations and forms of power, economically, socially, politically

Now is the time when we need a way of evaluating of what comes next, when we face a world that has gone in a very short period of time from seemingly linear (simple) to complex and non-linear (chaotic). When we move into a world that is inherently more complex, the result is concussive, its disorientating effects surround us, and our responses either individually or at an organisational level result in reflexes and perspectives that can be dangerously corrosive or inappropriate. And yet, this chaos seems to be, if anything, accelerating. At this very moment, great debates are raging. The spanners are in the works, defined by 9/11 (we now talk about asymmetrical warfare) and the near collapse of the world banking system (and its asymmetrical impact on every single one of us). And, as the global centre of economic gravity moves east, this has set off a series of events that are having significant asymmetric economic effects on societies around the world. These are but three examples of fault lines creating battles, ideological or otherwise, that are exploding and imploding at the same time. They all surfaced in a single decade. Though it is important to add that their gestation period has been much longer and is indeed multidimensional. These challenges are highly interlinked and interdependent, so a one-size-fits-all response just won’t do. There are no longer simple problems; what we face is the trilemma of a complex world. This book does its best to face them, because we are in more than just an economic crisis; it is equally political, educational, spiritual and moral.

The cultural challenge

The biggest challenge we face is cultural. How we contextualise (make sense of) the world around us determines how we engage and what action we take. Those actions then determine the outcomes we must live with and this requires a change from our industrial mindset and behaviour to one that is more cognisant of what is now seen as a non-linear world. This is where I want to return to the idea that what we face is a design problem, where answers exist not at an unattainable theoretical level but on the floors of our factories, in the streets of our towns and cities, the classes of our schools, the waiting rooms of our hospitals. These answers will manifest themselves as true acts of creation, originating new ways of getting stuff done, informed by the decisions we collectively take. So in re-designing the world, we need human creativity in the sense of the capacity to ‘make’, we need visionary leadership in the sense of making a difference. And we seek the craftsman’s critical eye, steady hand and creative mind. It is this process of seeing – realising new pathways to success, by bringing two ‘unlikes’ (new information, tools, processes etc.) together in close adjacency – that we create, and make new things. Then we can meaningfully apply that capability.

The coming age of the Craftsman

Why is the idea of craftsmanship significant at this epochal moment in time? Because it is about shaping our future and the ‘engaged’ craftsman brings the full power of humanity to bear upon his work. His hand is guided by his eye, informed by his creative mind; his productivity the act of unique creation. Indeed, the master craftsman is adept in using a philosophical framework, as well as tools and materials, to deliver useful things to the world. But more than that, the craftsman must be open constantly to new ideas; he is essentially always in beta. Therefore, we cannot engage with our uncertain non-linear world with the linear and inflexible orthodoxy of logic alone. The craftsman’s critical eye and creative mind is vital to evaluating new possibilities; he must be open to new ideas, information, tools and materials to make things that enable humanity to flourish. This approach is inherently more creative in that it synthesises all aspects of what make us truly human. But the 21st century craftsman does not only exist in the dusty workshop of a forgotten age; a games designer is a craftsman, a Linux programmer is a craftsman, innovative organisations like Local Motors and Ushahidi, which are discussed in more detail in Chapters 3 and 8, embed craftsmanship into everything they do. These are well designed responses to what real life previously perceived as intractable as the plot line in Catch¯22.

And so I come to this project with a strongly held belief, that there is an opportunity to bring a way of thinking to many of the seemingly intractable problems that confront us today. But this requires us to think and act as craftsmen and women and apply our critical thinking to understanding our non-linear world, which is in part shaped by participatory cultures, open, complex and seemingly ambiguous systems that are highly interdependent of each other. We need to be inspired to be epic, to seek epic wins – to design for transformation, to make informed choices and co-author innovative new possibilities that can enable humanity to lead a life not constrained by the crushing reality of industrial-age thinking but one designed around the primary needs of humanity. We need to explore our non-linear world, not exploit it.

I believe there is much evidence demonstrating the possibility of this society. It exists in philosophical frameworks, language and literacy, legal frameworks, tools and technologies, and real stories of how others have been motivated by a real desire to create new and better answers to what others would call unsolvable, wicked problems. And it has been my mission to bring together these separate component parts to offer to you a vision of the world which is both realistic and eminently possible. But to create this regenerative society requires us to take a voyage of discovery and to look upon the world as Proust would say with fresh eyes. This is the world of no straight lines and this project is how we make sense of this non-linear world, and then act in it.

January 18, 2012

There are 6 challenges I believe that organisations have to navigate to thrive in a non-linear world.

These are:

[1] How do organisations of all creeds deal with a more complex and increasingly ambiguous world?

[2] How do those organisations push through from living in an ambiguous world to one in which they can begin to design for adaptation?

[3] How do organisations learn to design for a more open world - which will be necessary for survival?

[4] How do organisations learn to design for a more participatory world?

[5] How do organisations develop a methodology for craftsmanship at a personal and more organisational level?

[6] How do organisations prepare for and design for transformation?

These six challenges are also the six principles of NSL. What our research shows us that whether executed digitally or in our analogue world or indeed blended together - those organisations that have addressed these issues with conviction are the ones that have moved being stuck in a world of concussive ambiguity.

January 14, 2012

This is something of an emotional milestone for me, an emotional coming home.

As Tomi wrote - we set up Communities Dominate Brands - the blog when we published the book of the same name. We had no idea what would happen - but it became an extraordinary platform to connect with a global community. And in fact is now voted in the Forbes No.1 read blogs on mobile.

There came a point however where I felt I could not continue for reasons that were personal as well as professional. My dismay over 6 years of watching media / mobile and business organisations systemically destroy themselves (Tomi has a point of view on this) as we migrated from a linear to a non-linear world was overwhelming.

My turning point was an infamous meeting with the largest regional newspaper group in the UK, plus multiple engagements with Nokia and other major mobile and media players - where one could see these incumbents were driving down the road to oblivion. And of course they were not the only ones. Why I asked myself should I run a business trying to help those that can't help themselves?

So I went on a journey

A road less travelled

As I continued to research the evolution of the media and the commercial communication environment, I had a dawning realisation that what I was witnessing was something deeper, more profound and epochal. It was in fact a communications revolution with deep social undercurrents that are having and will have a profound effect on every touch point of our society and our daily lives. And there is no doubt that technology, particularly communications technology, can be wielded as a powerful agent of social and political change. But we seem to have arrived at a crossroads, and this makes me fearful that too few truly understand the underlying reasons for what’s happening now or the implications of what happens next. Too many companies are locked into a linear system, a framework and model that only allows them to look at and engage with the world in a particular fashion. And this communications revolution is not about just companies and organisations; it is about us – you, I and society per se.

The death and life of eco-systems

We are witnessing the death and life of two very different eco-systems - one which we started to describe in Communities Dominate Brands - and which is now truly redefining our world.

We have arrived at the edge of the adaptive range of our industrial world. At the edge, because that world, our world is being overwhelmed by a trilemma of social, organisational and economic complexity. We are in transit from a linear world to a non-linear one. Non-linear because it is for all of us socially, organisationally and economically ambiguous, confusing and worrying. Consequently we are faced with an increasingly pressing and urgent problem, WHAT COMES NEXT? And also we are therefore presented with a design challenge: HOW do we create better societies, more able organisations and, more vibrant and equitable economies relevant to the world we live in today? No Straight Lines presents a new logic and inspiring plea for a more human centric world that argues we now have the possibility to truly transform our world, to be more resilient, to be more relevant to us both personally and collectively, socially cohesive, sustainable, economically vibrant and humane, through the tools, capabilities, language and processes at our fingertips.

Jo Pine author of The experience Economy and Infinite Possibility writes ‘Anyone worried about where business is going in today’s chaotic world – and everyone concerned with where it should be going – must read No Straight Lines. Alan Moore has captured what is happening, but more importantly provides prescriptions for what individuals, companies, and society should do about it to create a better world’.

June 12, 2010

I had the honor and privilege to present to the MMA Global event in New York City where I gave the first keynote of day 2. I was asked to present magical mobile marketing examples from around the world, featuring both sides of the Digital Divide (more about my presentation in chronological order here below).

As luck would have it, my flight arrived very early and I was able to join Day 1 nearly from the beginning. And I stayed for the full 2 days of the event, and made meticulous notes of all presentations. I was stunned to find at the end, that I had made more notes of this event - which indicates innovations and relevant updates - than any other event in mobile that I have ever attended before in my over 260 public speakerships in over 40 countries on all six inhabited continents. Noting that those include the biggest telecoms event of North America - the CTIA, the biggest telecoms event of Asia, CommunicAsia, the biggest telecoms event of Latin America, Andicom, and the biggest telecoms event in the world (and of Europe obviously) - the Mobile World Congress - this 2 day New York event arranged by the MMA was something quite exceptional. I promised to blog about what I had found noteworthy.

I also want to mention two very fascinating observations. First, that as mobile advertising is quite old as a concept - I chaired the world's first mobile advertising conference (held in London by the WAA the Wireless Advertising Association, which later merged to form part of the MMA) almost ten years ago - we've seen mobile advertising and marketing experience a slow growth through most of this decade. Certainly its innovations and revenues and market successes have been in the shadow of ringing tones and videogames and news and social networking until very recently. Mobile advertising for most of the past decade has not been particularly innovative. That has now changed radically, no doubt most of all propelled by the USA-driven global advertising industry, which was awoken only after 2007 when the iPhone hit the pockets of every self-respecting ad man and mad man (and -woman).

Secondly, one would be forgiven to assume, that a mobile advertising and marketing event held in the USA today, would be filled with iPhone Apps hysteria (the iSyndrome, as our friend Martin Wilson calls the mistaken notion that building an iPhone app translates into a mobile strategy haha...) and location based advertising hype. And that the American audience would not be offered a view into the true mass market reaches of SMS, MMS and WAP. Yes, one might think that. But this was an event arranged by the MMA, the Mobile Marketing Association. They are professionals. They know their stuff. And yes,SMS, MMS and WAP were regularly mentioned, and even more reassuringly, many speakers emphasized the point, that while advertising clients (the 'brands') often requested iPhone apps in first meetings, the reality is today for MMA members, that even in the USA, they run mostly SMS, MMS and WAP solutions for most mobile advertising and marketing uses, and apps are - as they should be - a minor element for the premium smartphone segment where they can add value. And as to location based ads, there was very little mention of this other overhyped proposition.

I missed the first keynote of by Soledad O'Brien of CNN, and I walked in almost at the end of the second presentation by Mike Steib of Google. I don't have any notes from his presentation. But after that, I was there the rest of the event. Lets go in chronological order the most interesting items that I made notes of.(I am not going to mention every item I observed.)

ESPN

The US sports broadcasting network ESPN had Sr VP of ESPN Mobile, John Zehr present. He told us about 'Citizen Scoring' ie as ESPN sends a TV crew to televise about 2,500 live games per year, there are another half a million live junior, amateur and youth league games of some sort. These don't get formal scores into the digital record of their sports. So ESPN has set up a platform to allow fans or supporters of these games and leagues and teams, to post the official records of these games. Thus when a future professional superstar emerges, we'll have a digital record of that star's junior career all the way to first public games etc... Clever, and very 'Communities Dominate' kind of thinking over at ESPN. John called it 'structured user-generated content'.

John also told us that Dunkin Donuts has run a campaign (similar to the Lays potato chips campaign in India) where customers of DD were asked to submit ideas for a new donut flavor. The suggestions were submitted via SMS of course.

MMA NORTH AMERICA

Jack Philbin who is co-chair of MMA North America, told the Track 2 audience that the Chicago Blackhawks mobile fan club (that I have discussed before) went from 25,000 fans to 75,000 fans in one year - and this was before the Hawks won its Stanley Cup, so today that number is likely even bigger - by the way, congrats to Finnish goalie Antti Niemi for becoming the first Finnish ice hockey goalie to get his name on the Stanley Cup, and the 8th Finnish hockey player across all time.

SYBASE 365

Sybase365 is the mobile arm of the database IT giant Sybase, that was just bought by SAP a few weeks ago. Cameron Franks the Sr Director at Sybase 365 presented in Track 2. He told of a really cool innovation by Rite Aid the pharmacy in the USA. They have regular plastic electronic card based loyalty cards like most major retail chains. But they have now allowed their loyalty card holders to register a cellphone number as the alternate loyalty card, and can use the phone numbers as their loyalty card, so they don't need to carry the plastic card in their wallets anymore (and have the loyalty card always with them obviously through the phone). This in itself is of course great utility to custmomers, but now Rite Aid can also send targeted messages via SMS such as offers and reminders if a prescription is running out, etc.

Cameron also told us of a Blockbusters UK video rental store campaign stats, that over 1 million rentals related coupons have been delivered (discounts, free drinks offers etc) and 100,000 of those have been redeemed ie conversion rate of 10%. Cameron pointed out that with paper coupons, all any company can do, is to validate the paper coupon itself (that it is not fraudulent) but with mobile coupons, of course the coupon itself can be validated, but so too can the customer using the coupon, be validated. Very powerful improvement over paper.

WEATHER CHANNEL

The Weather Channel has for many years had more total web usage in the USA coming from mobile users, than PC users. But now Cameron Clayton, the VP Mobile, gave us unique audience numbers which I think were very revealing. On TV, the Weather Channel gets a unique audience monthly of 119 million. On the PC, they get 42 million. On mobile they get 22 million. And on the iPad they have 520,000. Cameron also made a funny statement, that the Weather Channel is America's largest locatoin-based ad platform (obviously all weather forecasts they show is local ie typically TV will show weather for any city). He also said that their mobile use had 'struggled' until the iPhone came along, which 'changed everything' (haha, sounds like my original blog here before it launched, forecasting iPhone's future impact haha)

MTV

After lunch we had Salomon Masch the Director Mobile & Emerging Media for MTV. He said that while MTV has tons of video format content for mobile, 90% of all mobile advertising on MTV is WAP banner ads. He also told us that they have now adapted (MTV property) Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - a 30 minute daily news parody show - into a daily 60 second mobile summary version. (I want that on my phone haha...)

ANHEUSER BUSCH

The US brewer of Budweiser beer, Anheuser Busch, had Todd Masinelli, the Sr Manager Digital, tell us about the Text Cruise to Beers contest, which is now in its 3rd year. Their Bud Light (light beer) brand has a text-to-win contest where they fill two cruise ships of contest winners on a monster party which ends on a private island with a surprise superstar rock band delivering a private rock concert. All the beer you ever wanted to drink on the cruise of course. Only way to get in, is if you text and win. They have a multi-platform campaign in all types of media, both nationally and locally where legally allowed, to drive Bud Light drinkers to try their luck in texting to win. The campaign runs from May 1 to December with continuous reminders and opportunities to reconnect with the brand along the way, while awaiting the announcement of the winners.

RG/A

The award-winning NY based global digital agency, RG/A (which I mention often in my books) had my friend Richard Ting, their VP & Executive Creative Director Mobile and Emerging Platforms, on a panel (I wish we'd have had a full presentation from Richard, his presentations are always worth their weight in gold). On the panel he responded to one question telling the audience that 2 years ago, RG/A had globally only 5 dedicated mobile specialists. Today their mobile competence has grown to 85 people. That to me is prefect evidence of how much increased attention the advertising and creative agencies are now focusing on mobile, and obviously reason why so much innovation is now happening in mobile advertising and marketing. Richard also said in another reply, that their clients often now know to ask for mobile, but don't know how to do mobile.

ISOBAR

Gene Keenan the VP of Mobile Strategy at Isobar, told of how they set up Adidas's campaign around the London Marathon. They offered all supporters of the runners, the chance to monitor the performance on mobile, plus to send personalized messages to digital billboards at given intervals at the marathon (ie any runner would see messages directed at them, correctly on time, when they approached the billboard). The total traffic yieded one half million SMS text messages during the London Marathon.

MMA BATTLE OF REGIONS

Then the event had a fantastic way to end Day 1, with a 'battle of the regions' where the Managing Directors of 3 regions of the MMA went head-to-head in a debate of whose region was best in mobile advertising and marketing. Michael Becker represented North America, Paul Berney Europe and Africa, and Rohit Dadwal Asia-Pacific. The audience (they had over 700 signed up to the event by the way, MMA's biggest event ever) voted using SMS. Each of the speakers had prepared short fact filled presentations for their regions, and we voted out one to give a final between two, and then saw more presentations for those, to then pick the winner (Paul won it). There were many really great stats and case examples that these 3 MMA veterans showed us, including several that are familiar to regular readers of this blog. I will only pick a few of my personal faves here.

In Turkey, Lipton Tea ran a campaign on ringback tones. Had 250,000 signed up. Grew Lipton sales by 47% (wow! Ringback tone advertising is VERY promising and Turkey has been an innovator in this space for a while now. Still, I was VERY impressed)

In the UK, the Ariel detergent brand had a campaign which hit 400,000 housewives using SMS and achieved a 20% response rate which generated footfall to the stores.

A TV ad (I think it was in the UK) for Wiskas cat food using SMS achieved 100,000 ads delivered and drove Wiskas sales up 30%

In South Africa, a florist chain named Sasko Flowers, ran an SMS campaign that resulted in 20% response rate.

That 'mosquito noises' campaign by Fanta that I have shown religiously for the past year as magical and fun, out of the UK, was revealed to have generated 600,000 downloads (cool, so there are about 1.2 million parents and several million teachers, who never hear those sounds while the kids play with their phones haha).

Our regular readers know intimately the award-winning BMW winter tyres MMS campaign with 30% conversion rate. I was happy to see it mentioned too, although I didn't learn anyting particular from that one haha..

The AXE virtual Wake-up girls, another of my faves right now, out of Japan, generated an increase of sales of AXE deodorant for young men, of 300%.

Out of India comes the 'Condom' ringing tone campaign, aiming to reduce Indian men's reluctance to use condoms, educate about contraception and AIDS awareness. The very funny campaign won CNN's award as best educational mobile campaign of the year, and drove condom awareness up 10% in India.

In Kenya its now possible to post savings to a funeral insurance account, via SMS.

And once again amazing milestone from Estonia - Estonia became the first country this year to allow citizens to post their tax return via SMS (don't we wish that was available in every country immediately? Ultracool) - Correction. A reader, Arild from Norway pointed ou t that Norway has offered this facility since 2003, so Estonia is no the world's first to do this.

The Puma F1 multiplayer racing game from China that I have often talked about has now usage stats - it achieved 200,000 downloads of the advergame, resulted in 300% increase in Puma sales in China, generated bonus interactions with the brand through ringing tones nad wall papers, and was so successful it forced rival Nike to react also on mobile in China.

TOMI T AHONEN - MY KEYNOTE

My keynote started Day 2. I gave 9 service examples across the digital divide, using my 8 Unique Abilities of Mobile as the framework for the case studies. As I have a tendency to do, I started first with some statistics such as that in India 33% of all messaging received by consumers is machine-originated, ie is media content, advertising, alerts or other marketing messages. I showed the stat that in Africa the average user looks at his or her mobile phone 82 times per day. And that in China of all paid newspaper circulations, paid mobile daily news updates on MMS and SMS have cannibalized 39% of the total paid readership.

I then used my line 'mobile is as different from the internet, as TV is from radio' and illustrated that when radio gave way to TV, all radio content was also replicated to TV, after which TV invented new formats you can't do on radio - like music videos - and that today TV revenues tower over those of radio. And that mobile will be exactly the same, it has already cannibalized all internet content in some way or another, it has already invented formats that are not viable on the web - like ringing tones - and that already today mobile data is bigger by revenues than total internet revenues.

Then I used the 8 Unique Benefits of mobile to showcase mobile advertising excellence, switching between the least advanced markets and the most advanced markets across the digital divide. For unique ability 1, personal, I mentioned the Australia stat that one in three spouces will spy on their partner's phone - and mostly do this while we are in the shower. My service example came from South Africa, the free Call Me service I have often talked about.

The second unique benefit of mobile is permanently connected. I quoted the UK stat that more than half sleep with the phone ringer left on, so SMS will literally reach us even in our sleep. My service example was the Guinness Sevens Rugby tournament app from Hong Kong, which includes game scores etc, includes tourist maps and of course bars serving Guinness, and that magical ability of the simple tourist translator, where the phone user clicks on an English phrase, and the phone speaks it in Cantonese - from take me to my hotel to may I have a Guinness to 'whats a pretty girl like you doing in a bar like this' haha... I also added my recent finding that this app increased Guinness beer sales by 25%

The third unique benefit is always carried. I quoted Finnair mobile check in stats that over half of fliers on short haul business routes now use the service. Then gave the example from Poland of the Knorr soups MMS based cooking guides, prepared by Poland's top TV chef.

Unique benefit number 4 is mobile payments as we know. I listed Kenya's latest number - that now their mobile banking accounts exceed traditional banking accounts (the first country to pass 50%). And as my service example, used the power of mobile to bring digital interactivity to non-interactive media, in the Coco Presso billboards campaign using NFC in Japan (where instant discount coupons can be redeemed at vending machines which are located literally next to the billboard advertising)

For unique benefit 5, creative impulse, I quoted that stunning UK youth stat, that 10% of british young adults think its ok to send SMS text messages while having sex (and for those who didn't know, obviously these young adults can all send SMS text messages single-handed and blind, so the phone may be behind the pillow for example haha). And my service example came from India with the Lay's potato chips campaign where India consumers were invited to submit ideas for new flavors. The four finalists are currently in test market after there were more than a million SMS text messaging based suggestions. The winner will get among other things, 1% revenue share of every bag of chips that new flavor will sell.

For unique benefit six, most accurate audience measurement, I quoted the AMF stats we know well here, mobile most accurate. My first example was Japan's Otetsudai networks (help wanted ads location-based service with full e-commerce etc). Then I showed the same concept can also thrive in simple tech markets, using Babajob from India where a similar service was deployed on SMS, WAP and IVR, and the addresses were manually entered by the prospective job seekers rather than automatically using the location data.

For the 7th unique benefit social context of consumption, I quoted the slightly older Jupiter stats that two thirds will try something recommended by a friend while also two thirds will forward something that they like. I used the Puma F1 race as my example - this was the only service example that I used of my nine, which had been mentioned by someone else during the two days. But I pointed out that when Rohit Dadwal of the MMA had shown the Puma F1 game, he talked of its user numbers. In my keynote, I focused on the viral aspects (social context) of the game which was also very clever.

For the 8th unique benefit, Augmented Reality, I quoted the stats on mobile virtual goods being worth 2B dollars this year, and mentioned Layar of course as the archetypal AR service. But for my AR service example, I showed the Adidas T-shirt campaign from Singapore, and illustrated to the audience how we've now moved from observational 'third person' AR to participatory 'first person' AR.

After the presentation (there was a sound glitch which caused me to run a bit over) there was the autographed book give-away of one copy of my latest hardcover book,Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media, and a rare print edition copy of Tomi Ahonen Pearls Vol 1: Mobile Advertising (it is only sold in ebook format). We ran an audience quiz of first, which country has the highest per-capita rate of mobile phones (UAE is the first country to pass 200% rate) and then where was TV-interactivity invented (the UK).

Of my presentation, based on Twitter commentary, the items that most struck the New York audience were the China 39% migration of newspapers to paid MMS/SMS news alerts, the 10% UK texting while having sex stat (of course haha) and that in India 33% of SMS is media content and/or advertising. Also the Q&A contest stat of UAE having 200% penetration rate got a lot of Twitter mentions. And I want to particularly thank Jeff Hasen, the CMO of Hip Cricket, who tweeted each of the 8 Unique abilities of mobile in its own Tweet with nice brief summary of that point and related facts.

ELECTRONIC ARTS

Returning to my notes, then we had Elizabeth Harz the Sr VP for Electronic Arts (better known simply as EA the world's biggest videogaming company). She told us that EA Games has already 50 games with a 'Lite' version, where the full capability total gaming experience is given for free on a game version that has only a few levels - those who want to play the full game will need to then buy the upgrade to the rest of the levels, or other such business models.

ALCATEL - LUCENT

Then my friend Thomas Labarthe the VP of Mobile Advertising for networking equipment makers Alcatel-Lucent, was kind enough to state that their mobile advertising platform was developed based on my book Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media (thank you so much Thomas!). He further kindly attributed to me my thought that in mobile we are witnessing the third evolution of mobile advertising, the first was copying existing formats from legacy media, the second is the current interactive advertising, and the new, mostly still emerging wave, is engagement marketing.

Thomas talked of the need to have clear opt in, to be transparent to end users, and to have clear and simple opt-out options. He said something also very perceptive as we ponder 'who owns the customer' haha, Thomas said 'the customer owns the customer.'

BLYK

Then we broke into streams again. I was in Stream 2, where our dear friend Antti Ohrling, the co-founder of Blyk was on a panel. (I would compain bitterly of this injustice, as Antti has forgotten more about mobile advertising than the rest of us have learned. Yes, normally Antti Ohrling should be doing a keynote of course. Except that Antti was actually used to run a workshop before the conference, so those who wanted, had received a lot of Antti's insights.) Antti told the room that in mobile the need for privacy increases 10-fold. He said traditional media had been living in a static model of segmentation, but in mobile we have dynamic segmentation ie our behavior can easily change in very short cycles, - it is possible for one person to exhibit alternate behavior several times per day, being a business professional, then a parent etc in the same day. Antti also told of a banking case in the UK without naming the actual bank, obviously, who had used Blyk to target youth first time bank accounts. When they ran their first campaign, the response was so enormous, that the bank's calling centre crashed..

COCA COLA

Then Coke's Tara Scarlett, Sr Manager CRM, told us that the consumer today has 3 times more choice in convenience store branded items than just 30 years ago. We are now facing hyperchoice. She also told of the Coke SMS campaign of Twist, Text and Win. It was supported across multiple platforms and media, but the purpose was to drive sales of Coca Cola bottles, where under the bottle top, there was an SMS code to win prizes.

CDC

The Centers for Disease Control had sent Holli Seitz, the Presidential Management Fellow to tell us about their pilot project in mobile which they now are expanding. I particularly noted the stats that even on such a sensitive issue as the government asking for personal data related to our health, 70% of their registered users, were willing to take a 3 question survey on the phone, asking for their age, their sex and their zip code. (obviously data which is very relevant to diseases..)

KODAK

Finally we had the CMO of Kodak, and bestselling author Jeffrey Hayzlett give a most dynamic and energetic and funny and emotional final keynote, based loosely around his book, The Mirror Test. Jeffrey said that photographs were the kind of property that regular consumers will run into a burning building to save. He also mentioned - very Communities Dominate haha - that the value of pictures increases when they are shared.

Ok, that was the best highlights of the MMA Global conference in New York. If they release a video of my presentation, I will blog about it and add the link also here of course. Thank you MMA for a truly wonderful event with a fantastic lineup of excellent speakers. I had a wonderful time.

Available for Consulting and Speakerships

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Tomi Ahonen is a bestselling author whose twelve books on mobile have already been referenced in over 100 books by his peers. Rated the most influential expert in mobile by Forbes in December 2011, Tomi speaks regularly at conferences doing about 20 public speakerships annually. With over 250 public speaking engagements, Tomi been seen by a cumulative audience of over 100,000 people on all six inhabited continents. The former Nokia executive has run a consulting practise on digital convergence, interactive media, engagement marketing, high tech and next generation mobile. Tomi is currently based out of Hong Kong but supports Fortune 500 sized companies across the globe. His reference client list includes Axiata, Bank of America, BBC, BNP Paribas, China Mobile, Emap, Ericsson, Google, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, IBM, Intel, LG, MTS, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Ogilvy, Orange, RIM, Sanomamedia, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Three, Tigo, Vodafone, etc. To see his full bio and his books, visit www.tomiahonen.com Tomi Ahonen lectures at Oxford University's short courses on next generation mobile and digital convergence. Follow him on Twitter as @tomiahonen. Tomi also has a Facebook and Linked In page under his own name. He is available for consulting, speaking engagements and as expert witness, please write to tomi (at) tomiahonen (dot) com

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